Noah Schultz, Braden Montgomery score spots in Futures Game
Two White Sox reps suit up for July 12 game kicking off All-Star week
Left-handed starter Noah Schultz and right fielder Braden Montgomery were selected for the 2025 Futures Game, taking place on July 12 at 3 p.m. CT.
Schultz, promoted last month from Double-A Birmingham to Triple-A Charlotte, will be making his second consecutive appearance in the game. Montgomery, a first-year pro, sees his first action in the game — an indication of just how high his star has risen, and quickly.
Schultz has had a rough go to start his Triple-A career, seeing his control issues compounded and getting run from his two starts to date (7 ⅓ innings, 13 hits, 11 earned runs, five walks, nine Ks, a homer and a hit batsman). Before that he was excellent with the Barons, going 4-3 with a 3.34 ERA in 12 starts.
Due to injury suffered in the 2024 College World Series, Montgomery never played a game for the team that made him the No. 12 overall pick a year ago, the Boston Red Sox. The fleet right fielder was swapped to Chicago as part of the Garrett Crochet package and hit the ground running for the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers; before April was out, Montgomery was promoted to High-A Winston-Salem. Overall, he stands at .274/.352/.468 with 10 homers and nine steals in 12 attempts — the power-speed weapon so desperately needed in the White Sox system. He’s also flashed enough defensive flexibility to shift over to center field in nearly half of his 2025 games.
Montgomery is also getting a relatively rare honor for the game, following in Schultz’s footsteps as a High-A player cracking the roster; just 13 of the game’s 50 players come from High-A. The ascendant hitting star is also one of just eight players in the game with roots in MLB’s developmental programs, as a veteran of the Breakthrough Series, Hank Aaron Invitational, and DREAM Series.
While Montgomery was recovering from the broken ankle suffered in the CWS, Schultz was making his Futures Game debut last July 13. It wasn’t a good one, as the tall southpaw entered to start the fourth inning and had an instant meltdown of single-single-single then a walk to force a run in. After hitting a terrified Aidan Miller with a pitch to force in a second run, Schultz got the collar and was forced to live with a FG career line of an 81.00 ERA and 12-of-23 strikes thrown.
His chance at redemption comes alongside 49 others divided into American and National League squads. The coaching staff has a Braves flavor, with Marquis Grissom and Chipper Jones piloting the squads and coaching staffs comprised of Atlanta legends. (Grissom in fact will manage his son, Marquis Jr., a pitcher for the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings.)
The Futures Game will air live and exclusively on MLB Network (simulcast on MLB.TV, MLB.com and in the MLB App), and naturally South Side Sox will provide coverage of the game.